Days of Our Lives Exclusive: Thaao Penghlis Tells All About the Castmates Whose ‘Sabotage’ Got Him Fired — Repeatedly! (2024)

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1/31

<p>During <em>Days of Our Lives</em>‘ 2023 probe into allegations of misconduct on the part of executive producer Albert Alarr, Zucker was outspoken about the treatment that she and other actresses endured on the set. “As weeks went on, my agents received an E-mail with a reduction in pay…[then] a second request for a reduction in pay,” she said, discussing her <a href="https://soaps.sheknows.com/days-of-our-lives/news/717227/read-arianne-zucker-statement-lawsuit/" target="_blank">sexual-harassment lawsuit</a> against the show in 2024. “While waiting for the results of the investigation, my character was being written off the show.” <em>Days of Our Lives</em> has countered that Zucker was <a href="https://soaps.sheknows.com/days-of-our-lives/news/717111/arianne-zucker-lawsuit-response/" target="_blank">offered a new contract</a> as well as a raise to continue on as Nicole Walker. But as of this writing, no deal has been struck, and her lawsuit remains ongoing.</p>

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2/31

<p>When <em>General Hospital</em> sent the Emmy winner overboard as Spencer Cassadine in early 2024, it was with the understanding that he would return to his role once filming was completed on Season 2 of Ryan Murphy’s <em>Monster</em> (in which he’d been cast as half of the infamous Menendez brothers). But after production on the series wrapped, Spencer didn’t bob to the surface as we all expected. How come? Apparently, opportunity had knocked. When Chavez broke his silence on the subject of his soap status in May 2024, he confirmed that there were <a href="https://soaps.sheknows.com/general-hospital/comings-and-goings/727335/nicholas-chavez-not-returning-as-spencer/" target="_blank">no immediate comeback plans</a>, adding, “I wouldn’t be as busy as I am professionally if it weren’t for the talented producers, writers, directors and fellow actors” on the show.</p>

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3/31

<p>Being a recast is hard. Being a recast for a popular actress who’s been around for decades, damn near impossible. But the <em>Days of Our Lives</em> vet, who’d already succeeded Lisa Rinna as Billie Reed, managed to win over fans of <em>The Bold and the Beautiful</em> as well as Hunter Tylo. So Allen was as shocked as viewers when she was let go as Taylor Hayes in 2023. “The craziest thing,” she said, “is right before I got dropped, I did the cast photo shoot, and then the next week, they called and said, ‘We’re not going to keep [you on through the third year of your contract] and… <a href="https://soaps.sheknows.com/the-bold-and-the-beautiful/comings-and-goings/695594/krista-allen-leaving-taylor/" target="_blank">thank you, goodbye</a>. I was like, ‘What?’ The show just said that my character wasn’t really needed.”</p>

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4/31

<p>The circ*mstances surrounding this Emmy winner’s 1997 exit from <em>Guiding Light</em> are particularly upsetting. Though he’d created one of the soap’s most enduring villains, Roger Thorpe, the powers that be pink-slipped him when symptoms of Lou Gehrig’s disease began to manifest on camera. An exec for Procter & Gamble, which produced the show, was even quoted in <a href="https://www.welovesoaps.net/2011/09/25blunders.html" target="_blank"><em>TV Guide</em></a> as having said, “Roger is a powerful, active, sexual, multicolored villain. That’s who we need him to be… We do not need a wizened little old man. And that’s what [Zaslow] would have to play in his condition.” To the horror of fans, <em>Guiding Light</em> recast the role with soap vet Dennis Parlato. Zaslow filed a lawsuit and was invited back to <em>One Life to Live</em>, where his ALS was written into his storyline as Dorian Lord’s ex, David Renaldi. He died the following year.</p>

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5/31

<p>Shortly after announcing that she had left <em>Days of our Lives</em>, where she’d played Hope Brady for nearly 40 years, the veteran actress revealed why: The powers that be wanted her to <a href="https://soaps.sheknows.com/days-of-our-lives/news/573671/kristian-alfonso-not-retiring-days-of-our-lives-hope/" target="_blank">sit out four or five months</a> before starting a new storyline in which Hope got involved with a Navy SEAL. The show’s top scribe, she suggested to <em>Access Hollywood</em>, “didn’t want to write it. I don’t know what his reasons are.” She later reprised her role on spinoff <em>Beyond Salem</em> and also on the mother ship.</p>

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6/31

<p>Never let it be said that the eight-time Emmy winner didn’t know when to say when. In 2015, the <em>General Hospital</em> legend decided to pack it in after 44 years off and on as Luke Spencer (and lookalike cousin Bill Eckert). “I’m just weary of the grind and have been for 20 years,” he told <a href="https://tvline.com/2015/05/08/general-hospital-anthony-geary-leaving-luke/" target="_blank">TV Insider</a> at the time. “I really don’t want to die, collapsing in a heap, on that <em>General Hospital</em> set one day. That wouldn’t be too poetic.” True — although it would’ve made for one hell of a memorable exit.</p>

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7/31

<p>From 1964-75, the leading lady and frontburner mainstay amassed a large fan following as beleaguered <em>Another World</em> heroine Alice Frame. Unfortunately, the NBC soap’s headwriter was <em>not</em> among her admirers. In his memoir <em>Eight Years in Another World</em>, the late, great Harding Lemay recalled being particularly horrified that she’d once “turned what was written as muted, catatonic grief into a histrionic display more fitting to a 19th-century madhouse.” Finally, she was fired and replaced with, in the scribe’s estimation, “a far better actress.”</p>

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8/31

<p>The Emmy winner loved his time at <em>The Young and the Restless</em> as Malcolm Winters; it began his acting career, for Pete’s sake! But in a <a href="https://www.soapcentral.com/yr/news/2001/1231-moore.php" target="_blank">SoapCentral</a> interview in 2000, he admitted that “I’ve done a lot of soul-searching. I really had to look at my career and my future.” Finally, he took his agents’ advice and took a leap of faith that has paid off handsomely: Since leaving Genoa City, Moore has become a primetime mainstay; he currently headlines his own series, CBS’ reboot of <em>S.W.A.T.</em></p>

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9/31

<p>Despite slaying as Delia Coleridge, the go-to bad girl of <em>Ryan’s Hope</em>, the original cast member was fired in 1983 for gaining weight. “I had taken cortisone for a skin infection,” she told <a href="https://ryansbaronline.tripod.com/kristensod87.html" target="_blank"><em>Soap Opera Digest</em></a> in ’87. “The doctor screwed up the prescription, and I blew up. It caused me three years of absolute torture. My system was so out of whack, and [the powers that be] were very intolerant of it… They wanted glitz, glitz, glitz, glitz… and it wasn’t particularly what I was physically capable of doing.”</p>

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10/31

<p>With <em>Young & Restless</em> leading lady Amelia Heinle, the soap-hopper had created that rarest of rarities — a bonafide soap supercouple in “Ashtoria.” But just after New Year 2022, the news broke that he had been let go. WTH happened? “I naively and inadvertently <a href="https://soaps.sheknows.com/the-young-and-the-restless/news/620149/young-restless-why-was-richard-burgi-fired-reason-covid-protocols/" target="_blank">violated the show’s COVID policy</a>,” he explained. “I felt terrible about it. I still do. It bothers me mightily, but it is what it is.” Nevertheless, the class act expressed his well wishes for both the show and his successor, <em>Guiding Light</em> vet Robert Newman (Josh).</p>

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11/31

<p>Unhappy with her work environment and the storyline that was being written for <em>Guiding Light</em>’s Alexandra Spaulding, the daytime legend took her annual eight-week vacation in 1992 — and never returned, thanks to an out in her contract. In an interview with <em>TV Guide</em>, she recalled that “somebody said, ‘Maybe Beverlee’s not familiar with the contract.’ Well, of course she was — she wrote it, you bozos!”</p>

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12/31

<p>The Emmy winner didn’t mince words when explaining why he’d quit <em>Days of our Lives</em> in 2020 after nearly a decade as Eric Brady. Storylines that were promised him, he told <a href="https://soaps.sheknows.com/days-of-our-lives/news/574649/greg-vaughan-why-quit-days-of-our-lives-extra/" target="_blank"><em>Soap Opera Digest</em></a>, “never came to fruition. I didn’t feel like all of the things that were being told to me were being delivered.” As a result, he wound up feeling “like a glorified extra in everybody else’s storyline.” Vaughan returned to the show two years later.</p>

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13/31

<p>After 13 years as <em>The Young and the Restless</em>’ Victoria Newman, the then-two-time Emmy winner walked in 2003 over “creative differences” with then-executive producer David Shaughnessy, <a href="https://www.soapcentral.com/young-and-restless/news/2003/0929-tom.php" target="_blank">SoapCentral</a> reported. Even before she had last aired on the CBS soap, she’d already made her debut as <em>One Life to Live</em>’s new Kelly Cramer. Now, of course, Tom is back on the West Coast and back on CBS, playing Katie Logan on <em>Young & Restless</em>’ sister soap, <em>The Bold and the Beautiful.</em></p>

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14/31

<p><em>The Young and the Restless</em>’ original Jack Abbott made no bones about the fact that he walked in 1989 over his dissatisfaction with the amount of airtime being given to a green rookie: Lauralee Bell (Christine), who just happened to be the daughter of the show’s creators. She didn’t hold it against him, though. And, she told the <a href="https://www.welovesoaps.net/2009/06/flashback-bell-responds-to-lester-1989.html" target="_blank"><em>Daily News of Los Angeles</em></a>, “if he ever took it out on me, he was sorry.”</p>

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15/31

<p>Shortly after New Year 2023, <em>General Hospital</em> made Britt Westbourne the hook killer’s latest victim — for a super sweet reason. “I’m in love,” her portrayer told <a href="http://soapoperadigest.com" target="_blank"><em>Soap Opera Digest</em></a>, “and have been doing long-distance for almost a year now, and my partner cannot move to the States at the moment.” Beyond that, the actress was ready to chase after some other career goals.</p>

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16/31

<p>When the original cast member of <em>The Bold and the Beautiful</em> revealed in 2012 that he’d donned his last Speedo as Ridge Forrester, viewers all had the same question: Why? Why? Why? (Yes, we always asked it three times.) Was it salary issues? “It had to do with everything involved with it,” he told <a href="https://ew.com/article/2012/08/23/ronn-moss-bold-and-the-beautiful-exit-interview/" target="_blank"><em>Entertainment Weekly</em></a>. “Everything combined.” Beyond that, he felt that he was owed “the chance to do all the creative things that I haven’t had a chance to do in 25 years” because of the job.</p>

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17/31

<p>After <em>The Young and the Restless</em>’ Phyllis Summers slipped into a coma in 2013, her portrayer told <a href="https://www.sj-r.com/story/entertainment/television/2013/08/01/exclusive-michelle-stafford-dishes-her/43808797007/" target="_blank"><em>TV Guide</em></a> that “a primary reason I have left is that I want to do comedy” — which she did with her web series,<em>The Stafford Project</em>. “I don’t feel comfortable divulging all of my many personal reasons for leaving the show, but I’ve been very honest with the people [there]and with the fans that there is no malice.” After a 2014-19 run as Nina Reeves on <em>General Hospital</em>, the Emmy winner returned to her old stomping grounds, replacing her replacement, Gina Tognoni.</p>

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18/31

<p>“I got into entrepreneurship probably about [2013],” the <em>Days of Our Lives</em> Emmy winner told Soaps.com a decade later, “and once 2019 rolled around, I had to make a decision.” Would he stay on as Sonny Kiriakis or go? In the end, he thought, “‘It’s just kind of time. I want to move to Florida. I want to be by my family. I want to do entrepreneur stuff full-time.” And so he did.</p>

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19/31

<p><em>The Young and the Restless</em> actor, who’d played Cane Ashby for more than a decade, was as “shocked and gutted” as his fans to announce that he’d been let go in the fall of 2019. “But sadly, it seems that <a href="https://soaps.sheknows.com/the-young-and-the-restless/comings-and-goings/539026/daniel-goddard-leaving-yr/" target="_blank">without Neil and Lily</a>, there just is no Cane.” But wait, Lily’s back now…could that possibly mean what we hope that it does? Click here for the juicy details of <a href="https://soaps.sheknows.com/the-young-and-the-restless/news/574800/young-restless-cane-returning-keep-billy-lily-apart/" target="_blank">the story we have in mind</a>!</p>

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20/31

<p>In the late 1990s, the Emmy winner (now <em>General Hospital</em> femme fatale Ava Jerome) was just beginning her daytime career — and wowing <em>As the World Turns</em>’ audience as Carly Tenney — when she decided to make her maternity leave a permanent leave. “I was told I would only get six weeks” with my firstborn, she explained to <a href="https://www.soapoperadigest.com/content/tbt-maura-west/" target="_blank"><em>Soap Opera Digest</em></a> in 1997. “I <em>made</em> this child. I had to do right by him.” Thankfully, she was ultimately enticed to return and become the daytime legend that she now is.</p>

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21/31

<p>Although when news spread in the spring of 2022 that <em>The Young and the Restless</em> had dropped the Emmy winner, there were signs that Rey Rosales was about to be thrust into a love triangle with wife Sharon and pal Chelsea Lawson… Well, those signs were misleading; his story was headed for the finish line. “Maybe I should have seen the writing on the wall,” said the actor on the <a href="https://soaps.sheknows.com/the-young-and-the-restless/news/627226/young-restless-jordi-vilasuso-why-he-really-left-rey-exit/" target="_blank"><em>Making It Work</em> podcast</a> that he hosts with his real-life missus. Near the end, “the scripts that I was given were very minimal.”</p>

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22/31

<p>After 13 years as <em>Days of Our Lives</em>’ trouble magnet Gabi Hernandez, the fan favorite made the difficult decision to leave the role of a lifetime — in part to advance her career and in part to honor her late father, who died by suicide not long after she was cast. “I had always spoken to my dad about my dreams,” Banus told <a href="https://www.today.com/popculture/essay/camila-banus-why-i-left-days-of-our-lives-rcna85120" target="_blank"><em>Today</em></a> in 2023. “He knew my ultimate goal is to create amazing stories and cultivate characters — to be on the big screen… He didn’t stay to see his dreams realized — the depression took over. I need to reach mine for him, and me, and our family.”</p>

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23/31

<p>In 1991, the <em>Santa Barbara</em> leading lady had just begun a split-personality storyline for her beloved character, Eden Capwell, when she herself split —for primetime. The Emmy winner left the role that had allowed her to put <em>All My Children</em> mean girl Liza Colby in rearview to star in <em>Palace Guard</em>, which aired only twice before being cancelled.</p>

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24/31

<p>When the Daytime Emmy winner left his role of Dylan McAvoy on <em>The Young and the Restless</em> in 2016, he tweeted that “it feels right to move on to <a href="https://soaps.sheknows.com/the-young-and-the-restless/news/48809/steve-burton-announces-decision-to-leave-yr/" target="_blank">new adventures in my life</a>.” But just a year later, he leapt back into an <em>old</em> adventure, returning to <em>General Hospital</em> as Jason Morgan, the hitman he’d previously played for nearly 20 years.</p>

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25/31

<p>After <em>General Hospital</em> reinstated the actor as Jason, and gave recast Billy Miller a new character to play (in Jason’s heretofore-unknown twin brother, Drew Cain), he wound up being shown to the exit. The show “has let me go,” he announced in November 2021, “because of the vaccine mandate” that was put in place to safeguard the cast and crew from COVID-19. He later reprised his <em>Days of Our Lives</em> role of Harris Michaels.</p>

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26/31

<p>The <em>Days of Our Lives</em> veteran can sum up the reason for his myriad exits thusly: Former headwriter “James Reilly was not a very nice guy.” Beyond that, the actor, who’s played Tony DiMera off and on since 1981, explained to Soaps.com in 2024 that “there was a bit of a sabotage that went on because I was popular on the show. There was another actor and an actress who wanted to see me go.” According to Penghlis, they got word to Reilly that he’d dissed his scripts. “So when I get called up to the producers, they said, ‘Oh my God, what did you say? James Reilly called up screaming that he’s going to kill you off!'” And that, he did. Repeatedly. “Every time he came back,” Penghlis marveled, “he’d kill me.”</p>

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27/31

<p><em>Young & Restless</em> viewers couldn’t figure out why, after the show struck pay dirt with the pairing of Devon Hamilton and Hilary Curtis, it would let her portrayer Mishael Morgan leave. “They were <a href="https://soaps.sheknows.com/the-young-and-the-restless/news/51037/interview-mishael-morgans-yr-departure-explained-by-manager/" target="_blank">not prepared to give her a raise</a>,” her manager explained in 2018. “We felt that we were put in the position that we had no choice but to explore other options… It was sort of a ‘Take it or leave it’ scenario.” A year later, a deal was struck that returned Morgan to the soap as Hilary’s surprise twin sister, Amanda Sinclair.</p>

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28/31

<p>The Emmy winner had been winning raves for his work as <em>Days of Our Lives</em>’ Stefan DiMera when he was abruptly replaced in 2019 by Brandon Barash. Being apart from his family in Indiana while he was working in L.A. weighed heavily on Christopher, he later explained to <em>Soaps in Depth</em>, adding, “Alcohol addiction is something I’ve battled since I was a teenager. I’ve had some amazing successes with it and some really awful failures.” Sadly, the <em>General Hospital</em> alumnus <a href="https://soaps.sheknows.com/gallery/tyler-christopher-remembered-tribute-photos-general-hospital/" target="_blank">passed away in 2023</a>.</p>

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29/31

<p>In 2018, <em>Young & Restless</em> fans feared that they’d seen the last of the Emmy winner as a regular cast member. “Time for a little more <a href="https://soaps.sheknows.com/the-young-and-the-restless/news/51054/eileen-davidson-leaving-yr/" target="_blank">control over my day-to-day</a>!” she said as she dropped to recurring status on the show. But our worries proved unfounded, and before we knew it, she and alter ego Ashley Abbott were back in the thick of things.</p>

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30/31

<p>Five years after the debut of <em>Santa Barbara</em> — and the introduction of sterling-silver-tongued devil Mason Capwell — his fan-favorite portrayer called it a day. “I felt like the show deteriorated after [its creators] left,” he told <a href="http://santabarbara-online.com/InterviewLDavies2.htm" target="_blank"><em>Santa Barbara</em> Online</a> in 2009. In his estimation, the daytime drama had lost not only its sense of humor but its heart.</p>

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31/31

<p><em>Days of Our Lives</em> only killed off Abigail DiMera in the summer of 2022 because her portrayer was unable to commit. As headwriter Ron Carlivati explained to <a href="http://soapoperadigest.com" target="_blank"><em>Soap Opera Digest</em></a>, “Marci was not going to be available to us full-time on contract, and it made it challenging to tell story for Chad and Abigail… That always becomes a problem when one half of a couple is not going to be available to you.”</p>